Here’s one for the ‘Not All Heroes Wear Capes’ file. Seven years ago, Turkish photographer Onur Albayrak turned up to photograph a wedding. What should have been a routine assignment turned into a shouting match, then fisticuffs, as Albaryak tried to stop the ceremony. He even gave the groom a broken nose.
Because he’d finally laid eyes on the bride-to-be.
The girl was 15. She was trembling with fear. Albayrak, hired to snap the usual pretty pictures at Malatya’s Turgut Özal Nature Park, took one look and realised he was being asked to document child abuse. He refused. When the groom confirmed the bride’s age, the photographer did what any decent man with a functioning moral compass would do: he stopped the wedding by force. The groom’s nose paid the price.
Albayrak admitted the act on his Facebook account on July 7, adding that he did not regret his actions.
“Yes, the reports are correct. A child bride means child abuse, and no force in the world can make me photograph a child as a bride,” he said in a post on his Facebook page.
Albayrak is rightly proud of his actions, noting that until the wedding day, he’d never seen the prospective bride.
“The groom had come to my studio some two weeks ago and was alone. I saw the bride for the first time at the wedding. She’s a child, and I felt her fear because she was trembling. The groom attacked me as I was leaving,” Albayrak said, noting that he is “happy to manifest his reaction”.
No word on whether he’s dealt out any more well-merited knuckle sandwiches in the years since, but there’d be no shortages of opportunities. As is common in Islamic countries, child marriage is a festering sore.
According to data from the United Nations’ children’s agency, UNICEF, Turkey has one of the highest rate of child marriage rate in Europe. UNICEF figures show that one per cent of girls in Turkey get married before 15 and 15 per cent by age 18.
That may not sound much in percentage terms, but put into numbers it’s far more sickening.
Child marriage rates have fallen but about 12 million girls a year are still married before 18 often with devastating consequences for their health and education, and ending the practice by 2030 is among the United Nations global goals.
Girls Not Brides, that campaigns against child marriage, said the crisis in Syria and influx of refugees into Turkey and other neighboring countries had caused a dramatic rise in the number of child marriages.
Yasmeen Hassan of Equality Now called the intervention “epic”.
“Very often for social reasons people don’t want to make a scene so I am really happy he did this. He should be hailed as a hero, we need more people like this.”
She hoped the authorities prosecuted the groom. One can only hope they did.
Albayrak’s stand was rare precisely because so many others choose the quiet life. Wedding photographers, imams, relatives and local officials: most prefer not to “make a scene”. Better to smile, take the fee and pretend the terrified child in the white dress is a willing bride.
Worse, some are actively complicit. Even here in Australia, it’s well known that imams are performing child marriages, under Sharia law and on the QT. Some have even been prosecuted.
Albayrak chose the opposite. He made a scene. He broke the groom’s nose. And for a brief moment the internet celebrated a man who put a child’s safety above politeness and pay.
Too many Western authorities still agonise over ‘cultural practices’, or are just too damn gutless to make a scene when Muhammad shows up at Centrelink to claim benefits for his clearly under-aged wife. The lesson from Onur Albayrak is simple and unfashionable: sometimes the only effective response is the one that leaves a mark.
Not every hero wears a cape. Some just have a camera, a conscience and a willingness to use their fists when the law and the community look the other way.
